Static Noise
by Kia Vail-Kagami
Summary: Subaru is determined to get on with his life, and Seishiro doesn't share. Or: The one were Subaru is nineteen and Seishiro is not creepy at all.


When he was nineteen, Subaru had a boyfriend. Or a lover. He wasn't really sure how it was called, having never bothered with distinctions or definitions. He didn't particularly _care_ what it was called. There was no one to tell about this anyway.

If there had been, he wouldn't have been sure what to say. It wasn't something he had wanted to happen, or planned, merely something he… allowed. His life, at this stage, almost entirely consisted of things he allowed, or accepted, or tolerated to happen – there was nothing he actively desired but the one thing that was forever out of reach.

His name was Kenji. He was older than Subaru (but not by nine years), and taller (though not as much), and he dressed smartly in a way that held no memories. Subaru had met him on a job, the way he met everyone on jobs these days (or rather, he didn't meet anyone outside of work). He had liked Subaru enough to invite him for a drink, and Subaru had been too polite to decline. They had talked, and met again. Kenji was nice, and pleasant, and attentive and in love (or so he claimed, in an understated, unobtrusive way), and Subaru had tried to like him with all the desperate determination of one wanting to move on.

The relationship was Kenji's idea. Subaru went along with it, because he _would_ move on, because he had a life (still, or so he tried to believe) and he would love again, someone better. Someone _real_. Someday.

So he tried. It wasn't easy though, for neither of them, as Subaru was still, despite everything, shy and oblivious more often that not. He just didn't care enough anymore to get nervous around anyone.

Kenji was patient, but even his patience had limits. Sometimes Subaru would realise that he had failed to fulfil another expectation and feel ashamed and silly, in a distant way that resembled a memory more than anything else. Eventually Kenji would have enough and leave, he thought, giving the ultimate proof that Subaru had indeed died and turned into his own ghost when he was sixteen.

For this reason, more than any other, he made an effort, and when Kenji came over and led him to the bedroom one night for something Subaru suspected was long overdue, he let himself be led, and tried to be normal.

In the dark room, illuminated only by the lights of the street below, he tried think of nothing but his (Kenji's) hands and lips and breath on his skin, and the feeling of his (Kenji's) weight pressing him down (that was just a little too light); in the end he tried not to acknowledge how badly he failed.

When the phone rang, Kenji told him to ignore it.

When Subaru squirmed away anyway, he tried to hold him back.

"I have to answer," Subaru said. "It could be an emergency." In fact, it probably was, for it was already so late than anything that wasn't urgent could wait until morning.

After a brief struggle, Kenji gave up and flopped onto the covers with a frustrated groan. Subaru hurried outside, glad that he was still wearing his jeans, and his heart was pounding in his chest, far too fast; fuelled by an emption that was more relief than he liked to admit.

As he left the bedroom, the phone rang for the seventh time, and a much younger Subaru almost used his voice to tell the machine not to hang up; he was already coming.

Whoever was on the other end didn't hang up. Subaru caught the phone in mid-ring and pressed it to his ear.

Silence greeted his answer.

"Hello?" Subaru tried again. "Who is there?"

Nothing. Just the faint hiss of static noises between here and elsewhere, perhaps covering the breath of the person on the other end. For someone was there, listening to him – Subaru felt it, with senses that were more animalistic that spiritual; pure, ancient instinct. There was, it seemed, a pattern in the static, and then the room around him shifted, imperceptibly, as if the darkness was smiling.

Subaru shivered. He was sixteen again, and this was the last day of his life.

"Who is it?" he asked, with effort, in place of the question he truly wanted to ask. "I know you're there."

The static stopped. But it was another few seconds before the silence disappeared as well and the dialling tone cut off the beginning of a scream, somewhere very far away.

By the time Subaru put down the receiver, the dark hallway was just a dark hallway, and the house was far too quiet.

The bedroom was empty. For minutes, Subaru stood in the doorway and took in the closed windows, the clothes still lying discarded on the floor. He was trembling when he sat down on the bed, still and tense, to listen to the all consuming, empty silence for the rest of the night.

The phone didn't ring again.

May 28, 2009


End file.
